TBTS vs. Black TemplarsMy first game with this list was
against a nice fellow named Chris and his rock-hard Black Templars in an
Omega-level Recon. Chris brought:

Chaplain

Emperor’s Champion

Three 9-man Tactical
Squads (each w/ a powerfist and meltagun) mounted in Rhinos

Two 10-man Tactical
Squads (each w/ a powerfist) mounted in Rhinos

One squad of Assault
Marines

Two Predator Destructors

One Vindicator

Chris’ army was exactly the sort I didn’t
want to face: lots of tanks and lots of hand-to-hand combat monsters (the
Templars took the vow that lets them hit God on a 3+). Combined with a
scenario that mandated moving toward the other table edge, this didn’t
look good for Team Puddytat.

Fortunately, the Escalation
rule hit Chris a lot harder than it hit me: I deployed my infantry on the
field (Scouts and Devastators) and Chris started with literally nothing
on the board. As you might imagine, Turn One went by very quickly.

Turn Two saw two Templar Rhinos rumble
onto the field; my Devastators fired into the lead one, destroying it,
killing two of the passengers, and entangling the survivors. On my turn,
Raja Shamshir Talatra, his biker bodyguards, my Speeders, and my Assault
Marines came on (would that my Librarian with the jump pack had come on
as well).

Above: Fighting
Tigers sweep onto the field unhindered

Wanting to limit the amount of shyte
these reserve units could catch from Templars coming on in the next turns,
I sent them up the right side of the board, following my “assault” Scouts.
My plan was to get the majority of my army into position to ambush Templar
units coming on piecemeal: meltaguns and multi-meltas would pop open transports,
and flamers and massed bolter fire, punctuated by Raja Shamshir’s excellent
hand-to-hand abilities, the Assault Marines, and the “assault” Scouts,
would wipe out infantry.

That plan swiftly went awry. Over
the next two turns, Three Rhinos’ worth of BTs, plus the HQ, the Assault
Marines, the Vindicator, and one of the Preds arrived. Chris threw most
of these at my flanking bikers, Marines, and Scouts. I could not get my
Rhino-mounted Tactical Squads into the firefight fast enough to prevent
a huge scrum from erupting on my right flank, and my Devastators and Speeders
failed to slow down the Templar reinforcements by bagging any more Rhinos
(prime example: four krak missiles hit a Rhino, two fail to do any damage,
the other two glance, with nothing more lethal incurred than “Vehicle Shaken.”
Sigh).

Above: The
battle bogs down on the right flank, but eventually the Templars prevail

The Veteran Sergeant of my Assault
Marines killed the Emperor’s Champion but was struck down by him at the
same time. Raja Shamshir fell under the weight of the Templars, who steamrolled
over the bikers and plowed into the Assault Marines and Scouts.

My Librarian, whom I was counting
on to turn on the tide, didn’t show up until Turn 5. By then, Chris’ other
Predator had come on and helped gun down my Speeders. My Rhino-mounted
Tactical Squads gave up on the scrum on the right and moved toward the
center of the board, vaporizing Chris’ Vindicator with a good meltagun
blast. Meanwhile, however, the rest of the Templars had overrun my “tactical”
Scouts and were threatening my Devastators. My Librarian bailed out the
Devastators, fighting off the Templars.

In the end, the Templars won the
battle on the right and managed to get their Assault Marines into my deployment
zone. I managed to get a Tactical Squad into theirs.

Post-game analysis: Given
the army lists, I don’t know that my guys stood much of a chance. The way
for “vanilla” Marines to deal with melee-oriented Templar armies is to
stand back and unload with lots of long-range heavy weapons, of which I
didn’t have many. Ah, well. Chris was a good sport about his cakewalk victory,
and I hope to meet him again some time.